Current state of NFL.

[JesterBlaze]

I haven't been keeping up with anything as it all just bores me but I've been up all night and took a surf over to NFL.com and it got me thinking...

Why don't the players and those on their side just start a new league? I know less than 3 names of NFL owners and care about less than 1. As a fan I watch the NFL to see the best football players in the world. I could care less what the league is called or the fields look like. Seems the owners own nothing without the talent whereas the talent is impressive in any color uniforms.

How much money/organization does it take to play football? Pop-warner does it with children every year.

[Matt]

I am totally against the players on this one. They are just being greedy right now. The state on the NFL and the CBA is to protect small market teams. It allows them to be competitive. Players want half the revenue to divi up for themselves and have the audacity to group themselves in with the vendors.

The NFL owners are the ones who built the league. They are the ones who made it what it is.
All this shit happening on Friday when japan is groing through disaster and death of life and on the next channel i see demaurice smith high fiving and laughing. ThIs guy is a jok

[Mike17]

Yep. Players want the salary cap removed so they can make more money. That would ruin the NFL like it has ruined MLB.

[dthompso8]

hang on the players didn't want to change the existing deal it was the owners...
the players didn't want more money it was the owners..
it was the owners who removed the salary cap last year as it alsi removed the minimum spend on salary as well...

I think the players need to make more compromse, but when the owners wanted an additional $1 billion dollars more in their pot before the revenue split the players should be able to ask why and see some evidence... (I think this number was reduced but the owners were asking for more before the split regardless...

These NFL owners are not the ones who built the league (well mostly) so that argument carries no weight for me...

just by two cent

[Mike17]

I have no problem with the owners wanting more than half of the revenue. The players just have to be really good at playing a game. The owners provide everything else we see in the NFL. Uniforms, coaches, referees, stadiums, they negotiate tv rights, transportation for the players, a place for them to practice. It's absolutely ridiculous to me that the players think they deserve half of the revenue from the league when they just have to show up and everything else is taken care of for them.

Just my opinion

[SteveBsFan]

I'm not sure the players want the cap removed. Last season in a capless year, players made less as a whole than with the cap, mostly because of the cap floor that comes along with the ceiling.

Like baseball, there are a lot of cheap owners in football who only spend because they're forced to. They then take a lot of the revenue sharing money from the bigger teams which pisses off guys like Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft.

As far as Jester's issue, it's pretty impossible for them to do that. The amount they'd lose from the NFL brand to their stadiums to their lucrative TV contracts would take years to rebound and come close to the current NFL revenue levels. Because of that, many of the players with shorter shelf lives are going to end up jumping to the side of "Let's just sign the CBA" opposed to taking a massive pay cut for the future of some other player.

[JesterBlaze]

The owners built the league??? Maybe in the sense that the guy who makes the first phone call starts a pick-up basketball game... but no one's watching until there's talent throwing down dunks.

As far as I see the owners DO exactly nothing and deserve slightly more than that. The average player is greedy, yes, but at least that player does something - at a huge health risk - every day.

I have no problem with the owners wanting more than half of the revenue. The players just have to be really good at playing a game. The owners provide everything else we see in the NFL. Uniforms, coaches, referees, stadiums, they negotiate tv rights, transportation for the players, a place for them to practice. It's absolutely ridiculous to me that the players think they deserve half of the revenue from the league when they just have to show up and everything else is taken care of for them.

Just my opinion

The owners provide money, just as Tom Brady, Manning, Favre, Elway, etc... could do right now. The owners don't even have to show up and literally everything is taken care of for them. The owners own nothing but the right to benefit from the sweat and blood of others in a capitalistic country - very close to slavery in principle regardless of how high the players are paid.

I'll gladly watch the Bears (meaning the roster not the uniforms or "Chicago") in old torn 1940's uniforms and ripped up turf at my local high school field with no refs. I'd never watch a "scrub NFL game" ala 1987 (?).

Interesting how polarizing this talk is. This is one of the few arguments which I can't see one of the sides at all and it appears those on the other side similarly can't see mine.



I hope the whole thing turns the stomach of many fans on either side of the argument and the NFL simply doesn't get the $$$ to split up in the coming decade. Now that this has my attention I'm thinking an NFL game is worth about $12 to me... mid-sideline. If the millions of NFL fans think the same then both sides would start to appreciate a lot more.

[Matt]

when i say the owners built the league, i mean they built it to what it is today. They made it the biggest sport in north america. They did the work to make it that.

[Matt]

and i love the players who say that they put themselves out there in harms way, but don't wear the most efficient safety equipment available to them.

In what other privately owned companies do the workers get to see financials, let alone 10 yrs of audited financials.

[Matt]

this was the owners proposal.

what is significantly wrong with this?

NFL Lockout: Owners Release Proposal To NFLPA, Included Several Concessions

Mar 11 7:56p by Mike Prada
The NFL owners have released their proposal to the NFL Players Association that was ultimately rejected when the NFLPA elected to decertify earlier Friday. The proposal includes several concessions the NFLPA was aiming for initially, including a split of the economic difference between the two sides, a rookie wage scale and a commitment that an 18-game schedule won't occur until after the 2012 season at the earliest.
The NFLPA was hoping the owners would reveal financial information from the last 10 years, which it alleges included the owners taking money that should have gone to the players off the table. The NFL owners balked and instead submitted a 10-point proposal that led with the following.

We more than split the economic difference between us, increasing our proposed cap for 2011 significantly and accepting the Union's proposed cap number for 2014 ($161 million per club).

The other nine points are as follows:

• A rookie wage scale based on the Union's proposal, which pays 2nd-7th round picks more or the same while repurposing money currently given to first-round picks back to veterans and for benefits.
• A $1 million guarantee for players the year after they get hurt.
• A decrease in number of OTA practices and practice time and additional days off.
• A commitment that an 18-game season would not occur until 2012 and only via agreement by both sides.
• An additional $82 million of owner funding that would go towards improved benefits.
• Retired players can opt into the player medical plan for life.
• Third-party arbitrators for drug and suspension cases.
• Improvements in Mackey Plan and others.
• A minimum salary cap figure of 90 percent of the cap.

[Matt]

so don't tell me the players want to keep things status quo.

they just want more money from the pot. that's what it's about.

Demaurice smith will continue to make himself look douchie in the process. I heard him on buffalo sports radio 2 mths ago and he was a complete moron. Didn't even do his homework while spouting his generic rhetoric.

[jeffrey]

Let's see if we can get someone to invest nearly a billion dollars of their money into a team if we tell them that they aren't entitled to much of the money that their team will earn.

[dthompso8]

we can only take the owners word for it that they are not raking in the money and no one is forcing someone to invest $1 Billion to buy into the NFL !!!

I am not fully on the players side but without them putting their bodies on the line then there is no game, if you play with scrubs then the money dries up and less people will be interested, advertising and TV goes down and where is everyone left...

This whole situation p****s me off as we all want to watch football, we all love free agency, trades and the draft as well as football....
It is a growing sport in the UK but this will send it back into the dark ages with only the hardcore fans left... not sure it will recover again...

[Mike17]

if you play with scrubs then the money dries up and less people will be interested, advertising and TV goes down and where is everyone left...

I get your point, and it's not a bad one. I don't agree with the above statement though. People love college football too even though there are lesser talented players on the field. I would argue that the NFL could shut out the players union and send out some scabs and people would still watch. I mean, it worked for Keanu in the replacements

[kkiley]

I get your point, and it's not a bad one. I don't agree with the above statement though. People love college football too even though there are lesser talented players on the field. I would argue that the NFL could shut out the players union and send out some scabs and people would still watch. I mean, it worked for Keanu in the replacements

How did that work for the XFL?